Foale on Fire and "Near Miss"

In his Oral History, U.S. Mir astronaut Michael Foale discusses the fire
and the "near miss" of a Progress vehicle, which had occurred during Jerry Linenger's
increment.

Foale says, "I learned a little bit about the troubles they've had, especially
with the fire. Vasily [Tsibliev] talked about it quite a bit, and [so did] Sasha
[Lazutkin].

"At some point Sasha explained [it] to me--and he actually took me to where
the fire occurred -- and showed me what he was doing and how the fire happened.
And he gave me a long hour's description of everything that happened during
the fire.

"It was very amusing. We were enjoying it. It was a good story, with serious
undertones. But he wasn't making a big deal out of this; he was telling me a
story, because I wanted to learn.

"And other times Vasily would talk about the near miss of the Progress docking,
that Jerry [Linenger] has since then talked about a lot in the press, as being
a near miss. And it was. A very close call."